Family-Friendly Firms See Bottom-Line Benefit

Article excerpt

At Fel-Pro Inc. in Skokie, Ill., a worker who wants a tutor for
her child can get the auto-parts manufacturer to foot the bill.
ConAgra Inc. in Omaha, Neb., will send a nurse to an employee's
home for up to 12 hours to care for an unwell child or parent.
Patagonia Inc. in Ventura, Calif., gives new fathers up to eight
weeks paid paternity leave.

These companies represent a growing shift in corporate America
toward family friendliness.

It's an issue businesses have been grappling with since the
early 1980s - how to help employees better balance work and family
responsibilities. Back then, executives viewed it strictly as a
"women's issue," and the extent of a company's family-friendly
benefits was usually to set up an on-site day-care facility.
Today, however, two-career families are the norm, and corporate
downsizing has lessened job security while increasing demands on
remaining employees.
According to Harvard University economist Juliet Schor,
Americans spend about a month more at work each year than they did
20 years ago. In addition, executives - many of whom are immune to
the impacts - are starting to hear about workplace trials as their
own children enter the work force.
As a result, the work-family connection has emerged as one of
the biggest issues facing corporate America. This year, for the
first time, Business Week published a rating of family-friendly
companies.
Today, more corporations are expanding their universe of
programs to include child-care and elder-care referral services,
flexible work arrangements, and adoption benefits. Some businesses
have even designated posts such as work-family manager and
work-life coordinator.
For many firms, this approach is nothing less than a competitive
advantage. "In the final analysis, it is the area where companies
are going to compete," says Bradley Googins of the Center on Work &
Family at Boston University, which co-authored the Business Week
survey.
Still, work and family researchers are quick to point out that
while companies have made great strides in identifying workers'
needs and offering benefits, such programs don't do any good if
employees feel they can't use them without being penalized.
"Research shows that the most important aspect of helping
workers balance work and family is not the programs but the {work}
culture," says Arlene Johnson, vice president of the Families &
Work Institute in New York. "Yet companies still struggle with the
perception that these benefits are accommodations or favors."
For Ellen Kullman, the family-support programs at DuPont Company
in Wilmington, Del., have made it possible for her to balance both.
Vice president of white pigments and mineral products and the
mother of three young children, Ms. Kullman finds that her schedule
is packed. She often works 12-hour days and travels about 40
percent of the time. The company's emergency child-care and
referral services have helped her. "When my child was in day care,
and she would get sick, my husband and I would have to figure out
how to cover that," she says. Now, DuPont's service helps her find
alternative arrangements.
Kullman also works from home several days a week to be with her
children. "All of it has made my life and my job enormously
easier."
Companies with the best work-family practices tend to be in
industries that face fierce competition for workers, consultants
say, including banking, insurance, and pharmaceuticals. BankBoston
created a work-force effectiveness department two years ago, and
offers employees flexible work schedules and child-care and
elder-care referral services. Recently, the bank changed its 10-day
sick-leave policy to include caring for relatives or friends.
One gauge of how far companies have come is Working Mother
magazine's survey ranking the top 100 family-friendly firms. When
the list debuted 11 years ago, only 30 companies were worthy of
recognition. Today, "there is a frenzy to get on it," says Milt
Moskowitz, a workplace expert who compiles the survey. …